SnapGlow.TV: Modern Gems Galore! Her family consisted of her mother, Sandy; father, Harry; and sister, Lauren. Her father died in 2001 at 65 and Rian mourned him until the day she died.
On her MySpace account, under the category of "Heroes," Thal named only one person: "My father." On Father's Day, six days before she was shot, she sent out this message on Twitter: "U don't realize things until there gone. I love u daddy."
Efforts to reach her family were unsuccessful yesterday.
In the late 1990s, a friend recalled, Thal worked at Katmandu, the well-known Delaware Avenue club. She also was headed for trouble.
On May 7, 2000, at 3:05 p.m., Thal and three friends landed at Philadelphia International from Paris aboard US Air Flight 27. Their trip home had originated in Amsterdam.
According to two sources familiar with the case, customs officials had become suspicious even before the group left the United States.
Thal and her companions had split up while preparing to board, then regrouped on the plane, which seemed odd. Officials took the foursome off the plane - causing them to miss their flight - searched them, and discovered large quantities of cash.
The four flew out of the country the next day. Officials waited to see what they would bring back.
When the four arrived back in the States, an inspector opened Thal's suitcase and found about 200 diamond-shape pills, which a field test determined were methamphetamine.
At that point, Thal became irate, shouting and cursing at customs officials, a law enforcement source said.
Court records show she was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession with intent to deliver, and conspiracy to possess with intent to deliver.
That wasn't the end of Thal's troubles.
A little more than seven weeks later, on June 27, 2000, state police raided Smiley's Gentlemen's Club in Ridley Township, where Thal was working as a bartender. Undercover officers had made a series of visits to the bar, buying cocaine and ecstasy from dealers inside. During the raid, a trooper said he saw Thal toss a plastic bag containing white powder onto the floor. The substance was determined to be cocaine.
She was charged with possessing a controlled substance, and freed from Delaware County Prison on $50,000 bail. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year of probation, to be served concurrently with her sentence for smuggling.
Friends say the woman they knew had no use for drugs. Thal loved exercising and regularly went to tanning salons, they said.
A close friend, Jennifer George, a fellow event planner in Philadelphia, said the widely published photos of Thal posing with celebrities at crowded nightclubs were misleading.
"People around us live in the fast lane; we don't live in the fast lane," George, 32, said. "She was in these clubs because she was working."
George knew Thal for five years and said she never saw her ingest more than a glass of Grey Goose vodka.
She said she knew about Thal's pleading guilty to drug possession but didn't see it as indicative of her life.
"You don't think she can change?" George asked.
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